Image is from the Wikipedia article on the Sudanese Civil War.
Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur (a little east of that deep red zone in the west of the megathread map), is the last major holdout of the Sudanese government in that state, and is currently under siege by the RSF. Losing it would be a significant blow to the SAF, though given how the conflict lines are shaping up, it seems increasingly plausible that there will be a de facto - if not de jure - partition of Sudan, unless the military situation substantially changes. This is because the RSF have been pushed out of central Sudan, while the SAF are being pushed out of Western Sudan - although, the situation is pretty complex and has been known to change rapidly before.
As has been a constant feature of the Sudan Civil War - perhaps the single worst humanitarian crisis on the planet right now when measured by numbers - the civilian situation pales in comparison to the military situation, with hundreds of thousands of children dead from famine, and tens of millions of people experiencing extreme food insecurity.
Al-Fashir has been the destination of many thousands of refugees fleeing genocide, and food and aid supplies into the town are being explicitly blocked by the RSF, resulting in scenes similar to what is happening in Gaza right now. The big difference is that fleeing from major battle zones is at least somewhat of an option, though people are often caught and robbed or enslaved or trafficked while moving to neighbouring towns and cities - and these cities are often experiencing similar conditions to places that refugees are leaving.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
The Iranian missile force failed at its two most important objectives: deterrence and compllence. They failed to deter Israeli and then US military action, and failed to compel afterwards and get Israel to cease strikes during the war. Strikes only ceased on a mutual basis after the US directly intervened and struck the three nuclear facilities, the USA's primary objective. The only Iranian compellence strike which can be seen as a success was the strike on the Haifa oil refinery, as Israel only carried out a single strike on Tehran's oil storage facilities. But strikes on the Weissman institute did not make Israel cease strikes on Iranian nuclear science and universities, strikes aimed at Israeli government and intelligence buildings did not make Israel cease strikes on IRGC and Iranian government facilities. Strikes against Israeli military targets did zero to compell Israel to cease strikes. Iran did not invest all of it's time and money into a ballistic missile programme to achieve these results, Iran would've expected to do a lot more damage. It also must be said that the "target bank" of secret Israeli nuclear targets that Iran "hacked" does not exist, and never existed. Iran bluffed big time there.
At most, Iran landed dozens of hits (50-60) from hundreds of missiles (500-600) fired over the entire war (so a very high intercept rate), and never managed a large salvo like we saw during Operation True Promise II in October last year. In fact 40% of Iranian missiles were fired in the first two days of war, and 60% during the following 10 days. This is a military failure of huge proportion, that Iran only managed to fire missiles in reasonable numbers for 48 hours before being suppressed by Israeli left of launch defeat tactics. Iran also failed to shoot down a single manned aircraft in 12 days of war, another huge military failure. Zero evidence has emerged of such, and it's evident again that Iran lied about shooting down F-35s. Even during the Gulf War, regarded as one of the most successful air campaigns where Iraqi air defence was considered ineffective, Iraq shot down 6 aircraft on the first day, and damaged 12 more. Overall 16 aircraft were shot down by Iraq during the first two weeks of the Gulf War, in an air defence campaign that is widely considered a failure. Iran shot down zero manned aircraft over 12 days, which included a 100+ aircraft US strike package that dropped 30 000lb gravity bombs directly over the three most sensitive targets in Iran. And just during like the Gulf War, the Iranian air force fled to eastern Iran to avoid being targeted, just as Iraq's air force had done three decades before under Saddam. To be honest, Yemen's air defences this year likely performed better than Iran's.
Interceptor stockpiles are limited and interceptors are very expensive, but interception of ballistic missiles was not the primary means of defeat against Iranian ballistic missiles, because of such reasons. This war illustrated that, the primary means of defeat against Iranian ballistic missiles were Israeli "left of launch" attacks, which rendered Iranian missile cities unusable and targeted TELs before launch. Which is why Iran was only able to fire 500-600 missiles from their stockpile of 2000-3000 over 12 days, and why 40% of missiles were fired during the first two days, and why a mass salvo of over 200 missiles fired during a single attack (like during Operation True Promise II) never happened, not even on the first day of war.
And even in a worst case scenario where Israel can't contest an Iranian ballistic missile salvo due to lack of interceptors, would this directly affect Israel's ability to wage war? We had this worst case scenario occur during Operation True Promise II, 30-40 of Iran's most advanced ballistic missiles directly hit Nevatim Airbase, no interceptors fired. The end result was one F-35 hangar recieved a direct hit, and one large aircraft hangar. The accuracy is not there for counterforce targeting at this range, which is why Iran's deterrence collapsed in the first place. Israel's ballistic missile defence system allowed them to conduct the war with minimal civilian casualties and economic damage, the worst long term result likely being thousands to tens of thousands of homeless Israelis. But even in worst case scenarios, Israel's ability to wage war is minimally affected.
Conventional ballistic missiles, as much as I'm a huge nerd about them, are a very expensive way to deliver minimal damage (hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars per round to deliver a unitary 1000lb warhead or cluster munitions on average), with questionable accuracy the further away the target is or the cheaper a missile is. Ultimately they are a weapon that should be reserved for hitting time sensitive, well defended targets that cannot be hit by other means.
Even moving on outside the Iran Israel war, how many Kinzhals and long range Iskanders have Russia fired at Ukrainian airbases throughout the Russia-Ukraine war? Hundreds, maybe over a thousand. In last few weeks alone, Starokostiantyniv has been hit again and again. It's been hit over and over for three years to be honest. Yet, Ukraine's airforce is still flying, crossing the Dnieper at low altitude, and then bombing targets on the frontlines. Will Russia use an Oreshnik on Starokostiantyniv?
Again outside of Israel-Iran, what nation on earth outside of the US, Israel, and NATO countries hosting US AEGIS ashore, could even construct a ballistic missile defence system anywhere near the ability and scale of what the US has assembled today? The only nation that is even attempting such is China. Russia has nothing in the ballpark of THAAD and SM-3, they have a single S-500 battery that doesn't fulfill that role. China has a lot of plans and ideas, but are still very much in the testing and development phase. The Chinese THAAD equivalent, HQ-19, was only publicly revealed last year. HQ-29 might be unveiled this year.
Okay, this is an argument you keep making that I just don't get - Israel signs a ceasefire, and yet is not deterred? Like, all this depletion of stockpiles somehow played absolutely no role in the decision-making here - Israel was totally prepared to keep fighting, and they just decided to... stop, despite the fact that they were totally winning in every way, and could keep winning? I genuinely don't understand the logic here, surely a failure of deterrence on Iran's part would imply continued occasional bombardment by Israel, as we're seeing them do in Syria, nonchalantly and consequence-free?
Like, we literally have a counterfactual in the Ukraine war - Russia isn't entering in stupid ceasefires proposed by the US, because they're winning and a ceasefire that disadvantages them doesn't make sense. Surely Israel, having shown how utterly bloodthirsty it is, would have loved to keep bombing Iran - and yet they didn't. Maybe the US told them to stop - but surely the US, having shown how utterly bloodthirsty it is, and having the destruction of Iran as a long-standing geopolitical goal, would have loved for Israel (with American munitions) to keep bombing Iran - and yet they told them to stop. What gives?
Now, this line of argument goes both ways - Iran did accept a ceasefire, so clearly their situation wasn't ideal either. But I just don't see how we can keep ignoring that the war, you know, ended in our evaluation of Israeli "success".
Ah, so now we're doing classic "3-day Special Military Operation" stuff - we ascribe maximalist goals to the Iranians that we invented, they don't meet them, and then we use this to claim they suck. What do we actually know about their plans and the kind of performance they expected from their forces?
Also, are we just ignoring Iran's status as, still, a developing country? They may well have wanted more, but this is what they could achieve with their limitations. Obviously a country like Iran cannot truly compete with the imperial hegemon - but they may well be able to give him a bloody nose! We cannot evaluate success or failure without also taking into account the cost on the American/Israeli side - do we dismiss the success of Vietnamese revolution because they took heavy losses against the Americans? Do we dismiss the Soviets in WW2 because they took heavy losses against the Germans? Do we dismiss the Chinese effort in WW2 because they took heavy losses against the Japanese? Forcing your opponent to expend resources, tying down their troops, stretching them thin, all these are small victories, and enough of them eventually add up.
This is assuming that the lower rate is because the Iranians couldn't fire more missiles, and not because they wouldn't as a deliberate strategic choice - because they were preparing for a war of attrition, and thus rationed their expenditure of munitions. We see this in Ukraine - Russia has a ton of missiles and drones, but they're obviously not launching their whole inventory all at once, because they're in for the long haul, and need to be able to sustain the war effort for years.
This is predicated on the idea that the Israelis were flying large amounts of aircraft directly over Iran, which is an argument that you repeatedly make, but that I don't think is actually fully proven at this point. We argued about this a while ago, but the evidence you posted several times of supposed JDAMs/SPICEs was a highly inconclusive grainy image, and in my view does not disprove the idea that a lot of Israeli strikes were standoff munitions. I do believe at least some Israeli aircraft must have flown over Iran, especially after the US strikes that also involved hitting air defense sites, but the notion of F-35s flying freely dropping gravity bombs wherever they want doesn't hold up in my view - and even if they did, the presence of Azerbaijan as a potential comprador hosting air bases also changes the calculus of the degree of penetration of air defense.
And how do we know that similarly extreme rates of ammunition expenditure weren't the case for Israeli ground strikes, given what we know about the paltry production rates of the Western MIC?
What does "wage war" mean in this case? Is Israel invading by ground somehow, because in that case ballistics are obviously quite effective, as seen in Russia repeatedly striking Ukrainian staging points, training sites and various other troop gatherings.
If Israel is not leading an actual invasion, then... what exactly are they accomplishing? Iran might not be able to degrade Israel's ability to lob standoff munitions at it - but it can just wait out until Israel doesn't have anything to shoot.
And like, this whole article is that munitions were expended at an unsustainable rate! If the war had continued, Iran would have started affecting Israel's ability to wage war, because even with their reduced missile launch capability, they'd have been able to just start freely striking. Hence, you know, the ceasefire, which it doesn't really make sense for Israel to sign if they were doing perfect, right?
But Israel's nature as a settler state means that settlers getting scared and running away is severe economic damage. Israel has already lost a whole bunch of its population, not to being killed at war, but to just fleeing. They're struggling to meet military recruitment numbers and getting embroiled in dramas with ultra-Orthodox groups because they're refusing conscription. They need that population - and yet, even a few Iranian missiles getting through and striking non-military targets depletes Israel of its population, which obviously has military impacts, because there's less people in Israel left to fight!
And when you add up the cost of an F-35 and all the maintenance it requires over its lifetime, how much cheaper does it end up being?
And how much is the Ukrainian airforce actually accomplishing, given that the Russians keep advancing? Perhaps missiles are indeed suboptimal for reducing the enemy's airforce - but they are clearly very effective in other ways. Why are we just focusing on airbases, and ignoring all the other strikes that missiles perform? How many Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries have been taken out at gathering sites, how many vehicles have been destroyed (now, a lot of that is also drones, but still)?
Well, apparently it's not the US either, because they don't have the munitions anymore! Two THAAD batteries deployed in a rather small country, supported by multiple ships, and there still were many hits. The US, a country over 400 times larger, has... two batteries as well?
Also, where did this even come from, this has nothing to do with the article? The point isn't "wow, Russia/China's so much better" - it's "US air defense can only do so much with the limited ammunition and batteries availabe". China and Russia can also suck - everyone sucks, because air defense is a tough nut to crack.
But in a world where everyone's air defense fails, the country with the greater stockpile and capacity to keep producing munitions is in a better position - they'll get hit a bunch, but they'll hit their opponent much more (and then we all die in
when the West realizes they're fucked, but anyway)